Is Savanna Nirvana?

Sociobiolgy (as explicitly advocated by E.O. Wilson) suggests that human behavior (even complex behaviors such as aggression, affiliation and altruism) is directly determined by genetic structure. Critiques of this approach have placed sociobiolgy in the context of a long history of biological determinism: an approach with inevitable political and social consequences. This paper focuses on recent writings of Wilson indicating that preference is genetically determined by a long social evolutionary history. According to Wilson, our evolution has produced specific preferences for savanna-like landscapes: grassy plains, dotted with trees, promontories overlooking bodies of water. In our review of the empirical studies of preference, we find little support for this sociobiolgical perspective.